収束ゾーンでのライフ: Life in the Convergence Zone

This chapter is worksafe. But I will repeat the CW: this story, as a whole, is going to be be pretty fucked up. Yes, more so than the chapter that needed a cut for violence. You have been reminded.

[AO3 link]

---

"That's her, then?"

"Her, now, yes," Widowmaker replied to Tracer, as the video from her security cameras rolled. "She ... looks much the same, really, other than her colouring." She tilted her head, and smiled. "So beautiful," she whispered, hands raised in front of her mouth. And beautifully done, love. Oh, you must be so happy.

"She gonna get anything from that laptop?"

The assassin snorted. "No. I bricked it before 'defecting' - the login screen appears to work, and network probes will show an apparently functional system, but in reality there's nothing there to be found."

"Nice. Useless and delaying," said the Overwatch agent.

"Thank you."

"You really should come in," said Winston, over comms. He'd also been watching the video, a mix of worried and impressed. "We can provide a lot more protection here, at Gibraltar."

"She's fast," said Tracer. "But not as fast as me. I can take 'er."

"Do not underestimate her," said the assassin. "She is still feeling her way into herself. I am... concerned, given what I see here."

Lena turned to her lover. "Should we go in, then? It'd be safer, that's for sure."

"If it is an option, I... I think so. I want to contact her - I think I can still reach her - but I want to do it on my terms, not hers." She reached towards the display, unconsciously, touching it. I miss you so much, but I am afraid...

Winston blanched. "The offer wasn't for..." He frowned. "No. I won't do that. I'll talk the others into accepting it, one way or another. The offer is to you both. Lena, should I send an Orca?"

"Nah, I've got my flyer. I can get us there on my own." She leaned over towards the padd's camera. "I know it's gonna be a fight, so - thanks, luv. You're the best."

Widowmaker kept watching the footage as the two Overwatch agents talked, wishing she had audio, as Emily looked up, out of the corner of her eye, noticing, at last, the camera that had witnessed her exhibition. She gave it a discerning look, smiled, chained up to it, and blew a kiss, mouthing, "I love you. See you soon."

-----

"No, she wasn't there," Oilliphéist said, sadness in her voice. "Not in weeks, I don't think."

Moira nodded across visual comms. "I am entirely unsurprised, but we had to check."

"I ran into Sven, though! It was so nice to see him again. But he was leading a strike team, and they attacked me so I killed them all. He apologised, before he died, and it was so sweet. I told him not to worry - we'd bring Widowmaker home."

The doctor nodded, looking a little concerned. "Did you dispose of the bodies?"

"Oh, absolutely. I swept the entire building clean. I even dusted!" It wouldn't do to leave a mess in Widow's house, after all.

"Did he say anything more?"

"Just that they were hoping to beat anyone else to her."

Moira nodded. "Yes - Akande changed his mind about that once a particular someone found out about you. You're certain you got them all?"

"Oh, yes - it was great fun, you'd have loved to see it. And once I catch up to Widowmaker, maybe you might - I found a couple of active cameras, and I'm pretty sure they were hers."

"Good. Hopefully, I will - I'd've liked to monitor your first real field performance for analysis purposes." She steepled her hands together. "How do you feel?"

"Wonderful," she said, bliss warming her voice. "Everything is so perfect."

"Thank you. Now, if you'd kindly move on to London - Oxton will appear there sooner or later, and I don't see any reason you can't set up a welcome home party. But lay low until then, do you understand?"

"Awwww," said the killing machine, "do I have to?"

"Yes, but don't worry, if my intelligence teams get a definite location on either of them, you'll be the first to know."

Oilliphéist smiled. "You're so good to me."

"Yes," said the Oasis Minister of Genetics. "I am."

-----

Lena landed her personal flyer outside the Overwatch facility's main entry door, the large one, next to the guidance tower. Over comms, Athena chirped, "Welcome back to Watchpoint Gibraltar, Lena Oxton. Winston is waiting for you inside. Widowmaker, it is required that you leave your rifle in the flyer."

"No," said the Talon assassin, flatly. "Under no circumstances."

"I assure you it will go untouched, and that this facility is quite secure."

Lena broke in. "She can't, Athena, it's part of her. Winston, you there?"

"Hi, Lena. Yes, I am. There has to be a way to do this - her being disarmed on base is the price for sanctuary."

Widowmaker shook her head, and repeated, firmly, "No," while thinking, This may have been a mistake.

"Widow," said Lena, "you've let go of her before, a lot of times. I've seen you. You don't sleep with her. I mean... I know."

"Of course," she smirked. "But she's always in reach."

"Would..." The teleporter's brow furrowed. "...would you trust me to hold her for you?"

"You do not know what you are asking," said the Talon assassin.

"I... I think I might."

The assassin breathed in sharply, surprised, a little shaken despite herself. "And you are asking intentionally?"

"I am," she nodded, looking into the spider's eyes. Not looking away, she continued, "Winston, would that do? Will the team accept it? If not, we... should just leave now."

The blue woman contemplated the offer, hard, diving into racing thoughts, weighing the options, taking a long, deep breath... and found, to her surprise, when she resurfaced, that she was already offering Lena Oxton the Kiss.

Lena nodded solemnly, taking the extension of her lover's self gently into her arms. "Are there... correct ways to handle her?"

"No," whispered the assassin. "Just... just care. And trust."

"May I use her strap, to put her over my shoulder?"

"Of course."

"Thank you," Lena said, gently. She shifted the rifle onto her back with gentleness, letting her lay against the side of her accelerator. She was surprisingly light, and felt unexpectedly comfortable resting there, on her back. "I have the Kiss, Winston." She felt a little like crying, while smiling - a strange feeling, but a good one. "Widowmaker is unarmed. So... how 'bout it?"

Five tense minutes passed before the comms board lit up with Winston's voice. "It was an argument, but... good enough, for now."

Lena let out a long hoooo, and offered Widowmaker her hand. "It'll be all right. Nobody else touches her. Nobody." The assassin took her lover's hand in her own, squeezing it, wordlessly.

Together, Widowmaker and Tracer stepped out of the flyer, Widowmaker sticking close by Lena's side, heading towards the base's massive, reinforced primary doors. Entering, they heard Athena's voice over the soft hissing of the door's quiet glide, saying, "Your sanctuary status is confirmed. Welcome to Watchpoint Gibraltar, Danielle Guillard,” and Widowmaker smirked, just a little. Clever, she thought. But now I know you know.

Lena blinked, eyes adjusting to the lower light. “Winston? You in here?”

“I am,” he said, meeting them as they rounded the corner. “Conference room A, please. Follow me.”

The three agents maintained a tense silence as they made their way up the stairs and down the short hallway and to the door. “After you,” said the scientist, opening the door. Lena smiled, a bit determinedly, and nodded to the assembled Overwatch agents, who smiled at her, and did not smile at her spider.

"Where's Ana?" Lena asked, while sitting down, just to get it out of the way. It was, after all, the largest elephant of several in the room.

"On her way back to Egypt," Angela replied, from her position at the table. "She was vehemently opposed to this, and, well..."

"Fareeha too?" Lena asked, just before the rocketeer burst in, and kissed Angela on the head.

"Sorry for the late," said the flying agent, before she noticed Widowmaker's rifle on Tracer's back, and Widowmaker herself, unarmed, next to her. She shuddered a little. "That is a very strange sight."

Lena snickered, just a little. "Yeh, I bet. She's not heavy, tho'. Hardly know she's there, and me havin' her seems to keep everyone happy enough."

"I cannot tell if you're talking about the rifle or the assassin," Genji added.

"Both?" hoped Lena. Widowmaker glared a little, but also smiled a little, and it was hard to tell which carried more weight.

"Happy enough," interjected Jack Morrison, "for now." He shook his head. "So. This new operative. Do we have a codename for her, or is it just... Emily?"

"Just Emily, so far."

"Knowing O'Deorain," muttered Angela, "it will be something dramatic, and almost cartoonishly Irish."

Widowmaker glanced at the Overwatch doctor and laughed a little, a mix of surprise and actual agreement, covering her mouth with her hands to keep it from becoming a giggle. Lena laughed, too, but everyone else in the room just stared at the legendary assassin in shock.

"You can laugh?" asked Mei-Ling, first to recover.

"She's pretty funny once you get her goin'," chirped Lena. "You'd be surprised!"

"Yes!" said Mei. "I would!"

Widowmaker reverted to her cool, aloof public self before admitting, "The doctor is... entirely correct. It will be both. I suspect it is why she was not permitted to name me. But if she has a free hand, it will be exactly as Dr. Ziegler suggests." She smirked at at the Overwatch medical lead. "Did you work with her in Blackwatch, Angela? Or is this knowledge of her habits more recent?"

"A bit of both," replied the doctor, carefully. "We shared data on a few projects, until I discovered her complete disinterest in ethical standards. And with her position as genetics secretary in Oasis, I cannot completely avoid her even now - not even knowing her Talon connections." She peered at the Talon defector. "But... do you remember me... Danielle?"

The assassin considered the question. "The correct way to put it would be that I have access to memories of you, even if they are not mine, and I do not process them as such."

"Compartmentalisation or complete dissociation?"

"I am not a psychologist. But... I believe the latter would be the more correct... term? Phrase?" She tilted her head, a small frown on her face. "I am surprised you accept this so readily. You haven't even hinted about trying to undo me, to put Amélie back together."

"I knew Amélie well," the medical doctor said, old ache surfacing just a bit into her voice. "And... I have some idea of what they did, physically. She is gone, and, facial features aside, you are nothing like her."

"Thank you," said the sniper, dismissing the smallest of doubts and the tiniest of disappointments from her mind, for now.

"You're welcome," said the doctor. "Let's move on from this painful topic, shall we?."

"Yes," agreed Winston. "We have given you sanctuary. Are you willing to give us intelligence on Talon?"

"If you..." she scowled, and started over. "If we can deal in a satisfactory way with our situation with Emily - meaning that the three of us are safe and alive - and if Overwatch is part of that... I will be willing to provide as much information as I have about Talon to you."

The scientist gorilla nodded, as Morrison jumped in. "A little sweetener wouldn't hurt. How can we know what they bothered telling you? How much of that is even real?"

"A fair critique, that this will answer." She picked up a notepad from the table, and a pen, and wrote down four names, four intelligence groups, and a series of numbers. "These are the top Talon moles in MI5, MI6, Interpol, and the DGSE. I have worked directly with each of them in the past; they report to Akande's personal intelligence director. The numbers are the routing codes through which they receive their payoffs." She slid the notepad across the table. "You're welcome."

Hana Song leaned in, and looked at the names. "Woah, that's - you came prepared!"

"I did."

"How'd they piss you off?" asked Morrison. "What'd they do?"

Widowmaker raised a single eyebrow. "I did not realise you were so insightful."

"Well?"

The assassin smirked. "One was sloppy on an assignment and will probably be discovered soon on her own. One has held a grudge against me since I broke his hand for putting it on my body without my permission; he is not smart enough to realise he was very lucky I did not kill him at the time. The third booked me in the worst hotel in Amsterdam for an assignment and I had to burn my luggage. The fourth..." she shook her head. "Who carries around tubs of butter and salt in their pockets to eat as a snack? It is grotesque, and he needs to die."

"Really?! " said Lucio, over comms, from Brazil. "Just... straight butter?"

"With added salt. From his pocket."

"That's just weird."

"Be happy you have not even been burdened with the smell. Death is the only correct response."

Morrison flinched visibly, and, after a moment, said, "...I can't argue with that as much as I should." He blew out a breath, cheeks puffed, putting the imagined odour out of his mind. "If these check out..."

"They will."

"...then this will already have been worth it, as far as I'm concerned."

"Try not to implicate me in their extraction," said the assassin. "They are by no means the only Talon agents in European intelligence." The 'and I have the names of more' was left implied.

The soldier nodded. "I know."

As before, CW: this story is going to get pretty fucked up. Archive tag: violence. Also note: I categorically do not write non-con/rape or underage. [AO3 link]

---

And then, one day, she was gone.

Emily howled like a banshee when she heard. A perfectly ordinary mission, a perfectly ordinary encounter with a decidedly, almost determinedly predictable opponent, and - gone? Just like that? No. Refusal, in purest, distilled form.

She spent an evening raging on the training grounds, injuring half a dozen opponents, all but killing one in her fury.

She spent a night barely sleeping, barely thinking, being apart so different now, so much worse because suspicions or not, she had no true idea where her lover might possibly be.

She spent a morning raging at Akande, demanding the right to follow, to retrieve, and was, again, refused.

She spent an evening demanding the same from the greater council, and was yet again, refused. "Impossible!" she shrieked, bursting out into the hallway. "I will not have it! I won't!"

Quietly, at the back of the table, one member of the council smiled, as the armourer stormed back to her workshop, ordering everyone out, and grabbed her rifle, enough standard rounds to kill an army, all the experimental rounds she'd made, every single one of them, and the chain grapple she'd made for herself, knowing that her unenhanced body would be wracked with pain, injured every time she used it.

She did not care, not at all. If they won't try to retrieve her - I will. And I'll make them stop me.

She made it further, far further, than she should've, then she could've rationally expected.

She made it past the therapist, and her security escort, roused to talk her down.

She made it past the security cordon, roused quickly to sedate and jail her.

She made it past the soldier ring, who weren't expecting anyone like her - certainly, not coming from the inside.

And, shoulder aching, exhaustion creeping up her spine, she made it 20 metres outside the base entirely - just short of her waiting flyer - when her neck suddenly stung, and her vision turned grey, and her skin turned numb, and her arms turned leaden, and the ground came up to meet her, fast, too fast, far too quickly for her even to say hello, before the world snapped hard to black.

-----

[Oasis]

She floated, freely, in the haze, slowly becoming aware of that, slowly becoming aware of her own existence. So calm. So still. So bright. So quiet. So unlike herself, and yet, so familiar, so like herself, so right.

Is this death? she thought. No... that can't be it. Death is... death is... peace, but not questions... and that was a question...

She didn't move. She didn't feel any urge to move, either. But if she listened, listened with her body, and not her ears, she could feel, she could feel motion, she could feel... what? She could feel her blood flowing. She could feel her heart slowly beating, she could feel everything in the little world that was her own.

What? What is... that?

A whisper. The faintest of whispers, a voice she knew, but not the one she wanted, a voice familiar, but not the one she loved, but... a voice. And words - "Ah, my lovely, do you feel it? Starting to rebuild in there, are we? Good."

She could feel so much, and yet, some things, she could not feel at all. With a beautiful clarity, she felt every strand of muscle, every shaft of bone, every length of tendon, every fibre of carbon and metal, every drop of blood, and oh, blood, there is so much of it, but so little past that, nothing outside...

Outside. There is a boundary? Yes. Of course. Skin. She has skin. Of course, she has skin, and she can feel it. So obvious, and yet, somehow, now, so novel, as though she'd never truly realised it before, not even before before, and she knew there was a before, even if she couldn't quite say what it must have been.

"There was so much," said the voice, "that we had to burn down, with Lacroix. So much to suppress, so much to rebuild, to form into your image - and ours." Fingertips, suddenly, along one arm, like electricity, like fire, and she felt as if she screamed, but didn't scream, and didn't even want to, but should have, all from the intensity of the touch.

"All that, when we already had *you*. We even knew it - well, I knew it - that's why you were the perfect template. You were already so completely, utterly prepared. And yet, we wasted so many months making a muted copy... but, well, you know that, or you will, again, in a few minutes. After all, you were there." A small laugh, and the touch vanished.

"And all you have to do is bring her back to us," the voice cooed. "Bring her back to me. Something you begged us to let you do. Then we can take all the things we've learned, making you, and give them to her, too, just like we've given them to you. And then you will both be together, and all - all will be forgiven."

I get to bring her back, she thought, and smiled, at least, inside. I have... I have a task. I have a mission. How... wonderful...

"Ah, almost there," said the voice. "Are you ready to be standing?" She realised the voice was louder now, and had been growing so, the entire time. She'd focused on it, so intently, so completely, and yet missed that most obvious point.

Moira, she knew, feeling herself take a long, slow breath. Moira O'Deorain. I know her. She found herself knowing many more things, many more things she'd already known, as if lights were turning on, one at a time, inside herself, her ability to conceptualise expanding, growing. The doctor. The one who...

"Ah, your first breath entirely on your own. How does it feel for you to be alive again, I wonder? It's been twelve weeks, you know - or, well, you know now."

Balance, she thought, feeling being poised, ready, in an effortlessly familiar way, and gravity, the pull of gravity, aware of it, at last. I'm not floating, I'm... standing.

"Are you ready to see?"

She was. She opened her eyes, spotted a running, ducking human target, and reflexively, without thinking, without needing to think, sighted that target with the metal and carbon extension of herself she held in her arms, and shot it down. She felt the bullets fly, so pure, so fast, so quick; blood spilled from the shattered skull as the body which had supported it slumped to the ground, heart still beating, at least, for a moment, spurting blood, and she admired the splatter, from her stance, not needing to move, watching the blood pool, so bright, so red, and felt it, through every cell of her body, through sinew and bone, through nerve and steel, through heart and soul, and it took what was left of her breath completely away.

"Beautiful," said the voice, by her side. "Superb."

She licked her cool, lavender lips, with a cool, violet tongue, shivered with pleasure, and turned to the good doctor beside her, appraising her anew through brilliantly silver eyes. "Delicious."

"Do you know your name?" asked the Talon doctor, the one who had given her everything she ever wanted, for a price she did not yet know. "Tell me who you are."

"Oilliphéist," she said, without thinking, just knowing, having never said or heard the word before, yet she knew, it was a great, ravening beast - as was she. "I am Oilliphéist."

"Perfect."

-----

[London]

Widowmaker lay next to a sleeping Tracer, gazing at the foolish girl's head, amused by the insanity of that hair despite the swirl of thoughts keeping her awake. This entire plan is falling apart, she thought.

What else could go wrong? she asked herself. It'd seemed so simple, at the time. So obvious. Pretend to fall in love with the irritating teleporter. Arrange a "defection," and get away from the abusive mess that is Talon. They'd finally accept Emily's petitions to upgrade, and send her out to bring her back. She'd help Emily break the conditioning, as she learned so well now how to do, and then Emily would have everything she ever wanted, they'd be together, and Widowmaker would be free. They could freelance. They could buy an island with a condominium on it. It would be wonderful.

Instead - nothing. Emily hurt, badly, trying some sort of mad run to retrieve her without upgrades, after being refused yet again. No concerted recall effort - just an "acquire if encountered" order, according to Sombra. And worst of all - worst of all - discovering she'd actually fallen for the hyperactive little idiot across from her in bed.

Disaster. Complete disaster.

Ah, well, she thought, at least it makes the acting easier. She smirked at herself. Acting is trivial if you don't actually have to act.

She rolled over, facing away from her new lover, and checked her dead-drop boxes again. Nothing... then, she blinked, and there was something, something new, appearing as she watched.

Hey, Chica, it's your best friend -

I'll keep this short. The official story? It was bogus. Most of the club haven't figured that out yet, but turns out Doc Two-Tone's been working on her out of town, and from what I hear, looks like she got your present after all.

But watch out, she's not a backup copy, she's a version two. Keep your eyes open. I don't know what new features have been bundled in, and you know what Two-Tone is like when she really gets going. She might not know either.

Good luck.

She'd signed it, "your favourite chupacabra" - one of Sombra's many running jokes the spider didn't understand.

"Mmmm?" she heard, from the woman next to her. Damn, she thought. The light from the screen woke her up.

The Overwatch agent rolled over and nuzzled the back of her neck. "G'morning, love. Whatcha lookin' at?"

The spider took a long, deep breath. I think... it is time to come clean.

[AO3 link]

---

[Incheon, Republic of Korea]

"Cor blimey," Lena said. "I wish she'd picked a more touristy part of town. We're too bloody conspicuous down here."

"You think you're conspicuous," her wife replied, "try being tall. At least I can check the layout."

The two of them - in carefully-chosen "hello, I am a confused European tourist" civilian clothes, with only Lena's bulky, accelerator-concealing jacket standing out in the July heat - made their way towards the front of a small restaurant in a busy commercial district not far from the industrial port.

Emily moved forward first, and looked sideways through the glass front window, spotting a small woman in very familiar colours and facepaint out of the corner of her eye, sitting in a booth near the back, facing away from the street. "I see her. She's... in her kit? Weird. But she's alone."

As Lena caught up to her, she heard a familiar voice quietly pipe up from behind. "N00bs," said the MEKA pilot, behind her, in perfectly ordinary business clothes. "That's my decoy. You gotta get good or you're in trouble. C'mon. This way. Right now, or it's off."

"Hana?" said the teleporter. "No. What's going on?"

"Come on," she repeated. "We're just going up the street. Things have changed. Follow me, or leave town, it's up to you."

Emily looked to Lena, uncertain, and her wife gave her a small shrug. "Like working for bloody MI6..." she whispered, following the woman they hoped was still their friend.

They followed her three blocks mostly east and two more blocks mostly north, settling into a booth in a nearly-identical business-worker restaurant, with nearly-identical booths. This one had a karaoke section, in back, but neither woman felt much like singing.

"What was that about, then?" asked Emily, as she and Lena slid into their side of the booth. Hana ordered a big pot of barley tea and naeng myun for everyone, and the waitress scooted off.

"Okay," said Hana, looking carefully at both of them. "We've got half an hour before the old school show up at the other restaurant. They don't want to grab you, but they want you to hand over the spider if you still have her. Do that, all's forgiven, you can come home."

"...you told them?" Lena said in a hiss, leaning forward.

"Bloody hell," breathed Emily. "It was a trap."

"You're here, not there, aren't you? And it's not a trap, they just wanna make an offer. I'm on your side, I want you to know what's coming."

"An 'offer,'" said Emily, "while unarmed, surrounded, and outnumbered. That's not how you have friends over for chat." She covered her face with her hands, looking down. "They're making all the same bloody mistakes they made last time, aren't they? Of course they are. What next, bringing back Blackwatch?"

"Well, then," said Lena, as the tea arrived. "An offer. What's the sweetener supposed to be?"

"They'll hand la blue girl over to MI6, DGSE, or CIA as-is. Nooooooo hacks required."

Lena glared at the gamer. "That a joke, luv? MI6 and the French will shoot her on sight. CIA... probably the same. Why not the Hague? Why not the ICC?"

"We tried. The Hague and the ICC won't even touch her. You picked a really unpopular spider to save."

"...yeh," conceded the teleporter, sipping at the unfamiliar tea. "I can see that."

"And the stick?" asked Emily, dreading the answer.

"No stick."

"No stick?"

"No stick. I don't like what they're doing, I really don't like what Ziegler was doing... none of the younger crowd do, we won't stand for it. We've put our... foots? down? Feets down? Whatever."

"Right," said Lena. "Thanks, for that. You've worked out some kind of entente, then - that include what Ziegler's doing?"

"We're still working on it. It's a fight and I don't know who's winning, but everybody will be in the game."

Tracer shuddered. "Well... I hope you win."

The gamer sipped at her tea. "So if you won't hand spiderbitch over..."

"Not happening."

"Then the fallback is, we can still be friends, but there's rules."

"Go on," said the teleporter, as the waitress returned with their bowls of noodles.

"Noooooooo working for her old bosses. None. You work with them, at all, you're all with them. We shoot on sight."

Emily snorted a laugh, but Lena frowned, angry. "I'm... gobsmacked. I can't believe they'd... after all we've done, they think we'd do that? The whole point of this was getting her away from..."

"C'mon! You and your wife ripped the walls off medbay to free Talon's deadliest assassin. They don't think they can make assumptions anymore."

"Bloody wonderful," Tracer snapped, not wanting to admit they kind of had a point. "They know why we..." She stopped, and shook her head - rearguing wouldn't change anything. "Fine. What else?"

"You're not Overwatch. No Overwatch logos, no Overwatch gear, don't raid Overwatch supply points, don't use Overwatch safehouses."

"Whatevs," Lena shrugged, dismissively.

"Not so whatevs," Emily said, overriding her wife. "Most of it, fair enough. But Overwatch is using my antigrav tech, free of charge. We can let that go on - if we can use empty safehouses when we need to."

"I can ask."

"It's one or the other. I don't want to get shot at by Overwatch agents in an Overwatch safehouse. If that's on the menu, I'm not eating."

"I can ask."

"Fine," interjected Tracer. "What else?"

"No team-ups with the spider when we're around. You're both out of Overwatch, but nbd, rite? Officially, you dropped out, nobody has to say why, you're fine, we're fine. We'll team up with you, we might even hire you - but not with her. Work with her where we can see it, that makes you accomplices to a world-number-one terrorist, bang. We treat you like her."

Tracer grimaced. "Oh, that's funny coming from Morrison - sorry, 'Soldier: 76.' How's that supposed to be any different? He's a wanted criminal himself, and labelled a terrorist."

"That's not fair," Song replied. "She actually is one."

"Was," interjected Kestrel.

"Is," insisted the gamer, "'til we know better."

"This is... PETRAS hasn't been repealed. Overwatch is just as illegal as everything else."

"Yeah," acknowledged the gamer, "but we get a pass. To a point. You don't. It's not fair, but that's the game."

"Unlike Overwatch, I am a security contractor, operating legally on six continents..."

"Not if they know you've got the spider," Hana said in a little sing-song.

Lena sighed, frustrated. And that, she thought, is the stick. "Fine," she said, tiredly. "What else?"

"That's it."

"You lot gonna be spyin' on us? Lookin' for a chance?"

"Nope. Blind eye. If we don't have to know, we won't know."

Lena nodded, and poked at the noodles. They didn't taste like much, but she couldn't tell whether that was the food, or the reality of the situation setting in. Even an amicable divorce was still a divorce, with all that implied - and this wasn't even all that amicable.

"There really wasn't a trap, was there?" Emily said, suddenly. "Or... was there? Is this the trap?" Kestrel looked around the restaurant. "Where's Ziegler?"

Tracer looked up at her wife. "Sweet?"

"Listen," said the flying agent.

Lena listened, and heard a soft, familiar ringing hum. "...oh. Fuck. I hear it too."

"What?" asked the gamer, already knowing the jig was up.

"Dammit, Hana - stop!"

Song put down her chopsticks. "I had to make sure you weren't under anybody's control!"

"When the bloody hell did we go missing for months?!" Kestrel demanded.

"You didn't, but I didn't know! Not for sure! I told Lena in chat - I had to know! For sure!"

"We gonna get darts in the neck now?" Tracer's gaze darted around, looking for Ana Amari, not finding her.

"What's in this tea?" asked the ginger, glaring at her cup.

"Nothing! It's just barley tea! It's good! And no! It's... I brought Mercy in. She brought a big scanner. That's it."

"You trust Dr. Ziegler to tell you the truth here?"

"I... I think she's wrong. But she's not a liar and I couldn't get anyone else qualified. Not who'd keep a secret."

"Hana's telling the truth," said Angela, closing a padded door behind her, and walking up to their booth. "I was going to appear at the other restaurant, if you chose to negotiate, but - this saves the walk. Here I am."

"Doctor," said Emily, stiffly. "Who else is with us today?"

Hana scooted over, making room, and the medic sat next to the young MEKA pilot, ignoring the question. "Hana brought me in on this meeting yesterday. So that you know, I came here early to scan you for the sorts of things I... missed... with Amélie. I did not find them."

"Why the double-bluff?" asked Lena. "Why move us down here?"

"Karaoke booths," said the doctor.

"...soundproofing," Kestrel realised.

"Apparently, inadequate."

"I have very good hearing," said the hawk.

"Amari and Morrison?" asked the teleporter.

"Ana and Jack are in Prague, at the moment, responding to rumours of a Talon action. They send their regards."

Emily let out a little heh at that. "No 'thanks' for removing Talon's best sniper from their arsenal?"

"Is she removed?"

"Yes."

"But alive."

"'Course." She did not say, "luv."

"I will relay both of those."

Lena Oxton gave the doctor a sharply pointed look. "What if you'd decided we had been... compromised?"

"Plug suit fits under regular clothes juuuuuuust fine." Hana pulled at her collar. "Hot, tho'."

The doctor smiled. "And you'll note - I haven't said anything about Fareeha's location."

"That's not what I meant, mate," said the teleporter, grimly.

The doctor raised an eyebrow. "It would... depend."

"Would it, now?" asked Emily.

"Can you honestly say you would not want me to undo the effects of Talon brainwashing upon you? Truly? "

"Not if it meant just applying another round of brainwashing," Lena snapped. "It's one thing to get somebody detoxed, sure, that's fine. Therapy, that's great - I know from PTSD. But throwing your own stamp on their brain - that's not 'undoing' a bloody thing, that's just changing the hands on the leash."

The doctor rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Lena, Emily, please, all of this has been ... far too much cloak and dagger. I apologise for that, but we did have to know. Can we stop this? Please? I am here to negotiate with you, not fight you."

"Sure, doc," said the flying agent. "Stop trying to turn people into other people, stop delivering ultimatums, stop repeating Overwatch's old mistakes, and we can all be besties again. Just tell me one thing."

"What?"

"Why'd you lie to us about your 'sedatives?'"

"I most certainly didn't!"

"'Sedative' doesn't imply 'made suggestible.' You'd already started your work, and you hid that from us."

"Oh," said the doctor, surprised, "you figured that out? I am... honestly, I am impressed. But I did not lie," she said emphatically. "I had not started my work."

"Then why that drug?" demanded the flying agent.

"Because you are both fools and I was giving you the best chance I could!" The field medic stood in the booth, hands on the tabletop, jarring the dishes. "Do you know how many of her bullets I have pulled out of our people? How many I have declared dead by her hand? I did not want you cut down, these... mistakes... or not, and if you did something truly reckless, I wanted to make sure you had a chance of surviving the night." She looked back and forth between the two former Overwatch agents. "She is not a person, she is a mechanism. A complex one, but a mechanism nonetheless. Give the correct set of orders, she kills, and you are on her kill list. But..." she said, slower, more thoughtfully, gesturing with her left hand, "I thought if she could be impressed upon you..."

"Dammit, doc," Lena interrupted, quietly, "You were wrong."

"I am not wrong, I..."

"She'd broken it herself. That's why she's never really tried to kill me, or Em. That's why Talon tried to kill her," Lena interrupted, again, rubbing her face with her hands. "That's how we know you're wrong."

The doctor blinked. "...what?"

"She wasn't supposed to get captured in Egypt," said Kestrel, picking up where Tracer left off, "she was supposed to die there. She was subverting her own reconditioning, and they'd figured it out."

"That is impossible. I have recreated some of what they did, in simulators, to learn how to undo it. It cannot just be..."

"Oh for the love of... it was. She'd done it, and Talon's termination order proves it. We were right. I was right. You were wrong," said Emily. "None of this would've had to happen if you'd just listened to me." She waved her hands around in the air by her head, wanting something to throw. "When you captured her, she was set to defect in a week. To us. In Prague, in fact. Today."

"Then the suggestibility ... did it...?"

"Make everything much harder? Yes. Thanks for that. Naught for two on those calls, Angie. Try not to go naught for three?"

Angela Ziegler sat back down, slowly. She looked at the tabletop, and at the teapot, and the noodles, and poured herself a little bit of the barley, sipping at it tentatively, in silence, for several moments. She bit her lip, put the small cup back down, and, eventually, said, "If it means anything to you... my 'three' is that neither of you show any sign of foreign neurochemical or neuromechanical influence on your brains. And I will report that back to Overwatch."

"Kinda figured that," replied Emily, slowly, "from the lack of shooting. That's one for three, then. Well done there."

"Hana," asked Lena, "how much of the rest was a lie?"

"None of it! 76 is pretty mad, Ana is real mad, we're all kinda fruck out, but some of us are more sympathetic than others. Particularly Lúcio. Particularly me."

"So," Tracer said, sadly, "a velvet divorce. That's the real offer, then?"

"The rest of us want to stay friends, but from a team standpoint... pretty much."

"Balls," said Emily.

"What?"

"Balls! I'll take the deal, but it's shite, Hana, and you have the sense to know that. Angie, I don't think you do, you were this close to wiping away a person to replace her with your version of somebody else and it's pretty clear you haven't even budged on the ethics of that..."

"'Widowmaker' was dead, either way," Zigler interjected, angrily. "She almost certainly still will be soon, you might well join her, and you have just as certainly taken my only chance of returning Amélie to her own mind. If you want to argue ethics, soldier, I am more than ready to defend my position."

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, then a longer one, and then, "I can't believe Winston is going along with this..." said Lena, shaking her head.

"He's... still of the opinion that Widowmaker should be convinced to go along with it," Angela disclaimed, acknowledging the difference.

"Good. It's not... it's not good enough. It's just not." said Lena. "But... good. And... we'll take your terms - it's not much different than we'd do anyway."

"I do not imagine the safehouse usage will be difficult to sell to the rest of the team. Particularly," said the doctor, sipping at her tea, "if you continue to forward useful information."

"Did you raid those caches?"

"No. But we will, now."

"Probably too late, we'd hoped you'd cover our tracks, but - thanks anyway, I guess. Hana, will you tell Winston - please, please, please, just talk to me? "

"I will." She leaned forward, regret plain in her face. "I'm sorry. I had to know."

"Thanks, luv. I ... yeh. I guess I can see why." She took a deep breath, and let it out. "But if we're all done now," she said, standing, Emily just a moment behind, "we're going. Don't follow."

"We won't." Dr. Ziegler reached into her bag, and pulled out her commset. "Pharah, Mercy - Kestrel and Tracer are about to leave. We have an agreement. When they're out of range, come inside and... join us, for lunch. It's quite good. I'll give you the details in here."

As the two women walked by the table, Hana stood, saying, "Lena, please - talk to me on my chat again. Please! Okay? Please!" Then she watched as the two women left the restaurant without answering, her stomach now uninterested in the previously-delicious noodles.

«We did this wrong», she thought, sitting back down in the booth. «This wasn't how this should've gone.» She stole a glance as Fareeha walked up to Angela, helmet off, exchanging a brief kiss, and frowned. «Now I just gotta figure out how to fix it.»

-----

Widowmaker watched Tracer and Kestrel depart the restaurant, and, seeing Pharah take no offensive action, lowered her rifle away from the kill shot. She moved to discreetly track her partners along street level, to their rented vehicle.

Her comm unit clicked on. "Widowmaker, Tracer here. We're out, and en route to rendezvous."

"Tracer, Widowmaker, acknowledged. I sighted Pharah, tracking you across the venue change. I told you we should've kept in full contact."

"You didn't engage, did you?"

"Of course not. But I was ready, if needed."

"Widowmaker, Kestrel here. Thanks, love. Glad you weren't needed out there. You heard everything?"

The sniper felt a little cold, thinking of the doctor's words. "I did. I... regret it did not go better."

"No one is happy, so it's probably as fair as we were gonna get. See you back at the ship."

"Acknowledged. Widowmaker out." She hummed, thoughtfully, as she engaged her chain, heading towards the meeting point. It probably will not last, she thought, but it is good enough, for now. If I can just convince our... friends... to join us, then we will have a real chance. She smiled, for herself, and there was much more than just a breath of truth in it. I will save us, she swore. I will save us all.

[AO3 link]

---

"Well," said Emily, "Here we are. Our North American home from home."

She unlocked a grey metal box and threw a large physical switch found inside. Hallway lights lit, and the sound of a motor emanated from behind the walls. Tracer jinked up to the elevator at the end of the hall as its doors opened, and she checked the interior. "All clear!"

Widowmaker could feel the positive air pressure from the elevator shaft as she stepped over the threshold into the oversized car. "This is your safehouse?"

"One of 'em," Tracer replied. "It's ancient! Built during the Cold War, last century. Things go well, we'll end up back here on the regular."

Widowmaker frowned, sniffing at the air - it, at least, did not smell so antique. "It has been updated, I presume."

Kestrel laughed - "too right" - and Lena grinned. "We kept the architecture vintage, though. It's... somethin' to see."

"Does Overwatch know of this facility?" asked the assassin.

Lena tilted her head back and forth. "I might've mentioned it to Winston, but I didn't give directions. He's never been here. Officially, it's an investment."

The control panel's round hard plastic buttons shone black, with white letters reading M, G, OPEN, and CLOSE. Tracer stepped over in front, and pointed. "Right! Overloaded panel controls. M is this floor - mezzanine, right? G is the underground garage and storage for the aboveground house. The cover story is, it's supposed t'be a cargo elevator. And it is! It all works. OPEN and CLOSE are for the doors, like it says on the tin. But to get to the safehouse..." She punched a sequence of buttons - G and OPEN at the same time, M and OPEN at the same time, G, OPEN, CLOSE, OPEN and CLOSE, CLOSE.

On the final close, the doors shut in front of them, and the elevator started down.

"How far are we going?" asked the spider, looking about at the brushed metal walls as they slowly descended.

"Not too far - only about ten metres," said Kestrel. "As far as we can tell, the builders wanted a bomb shelter that'd do double duty as a guest house."

"Which is it more like ..." Widowmaker went silent as the doors opened upon a lawn. She stepped forward, onto the ground, looking up at the very low sky, or very high ceiling - depending, she supposed, upon one's point of view. To the left, a two-storey mid-century modern home, brown-tiled "roof" jutting into the "sky," the sky a ceiling from which artificial daylight shone evenly across the underground chamber. Around the outside of the "house" and "yard" stood concrete walls, covered in a mix of sculpted trees, murals of mountains, and artificial sky.

"Yeh - that was my reaction too," chirped Lena, with a grin.

"The friezes are... hideous. But the light, it is not terrible." She looked towards the building within the building. "It is a... they called it a split-level? They built a..." She shook her head. "C'est bizarre."

"The lighting's this good 'cause we replaced that bit," nodded Emily. "C'mon, it gets better." She stepped out of the elevator, onto the crazy-paving path. "And the house is nice."

-----

Kestrel picked up a pleasantly modern control padd as soon as they stepped inside the front door. Holograms applied themselves over the mural and sculptures outside, rendering a far more naturalistic appearance. "Much better. We kept them, but... that doesn't mean we want to look at them," she said, wryly.

Tracer jinked over and grabbed another padd. "Security system's up - no intruders, no alerts, water supply's good, HVAC normal, and best of all..." She pulled off her accelerator, popped it on a stand, and plugged it in for charge - turned off. "Ahhhhhhh. That's better."

"You do not have to wear it?" asked the Widowmaker, surprised.

"Whole house is an accelerator chamber, luv. 'Yard,' too. I'm free as a bird down here. Ironic, innit?" She shook her shoulders and stretched. "Hoo. So nice. I'm gonna bring up the network, see if Winston's answering yet," said continued, "an' check on home accounts. See if Overwatch's said anything to Interpol or th' like."

Emily nodded - "good idea" - as she opened first curtains, then a couple of windows - why? thought Widowmaker - and she received her answer as a light breeze wafted through the living room.

"The illusion wasn't bad, even with the vintage kit." The ginger shook her head and smiled. "We improved it, though. We don't get to show it off, much - what do you think?"

Widowmaker slowly looked around. Century-old couches, chairs, table lamps, a sunken living room, a... dining room, a kitchen, a washroom visible down the hall, stairs leading to... bedrooms? Workrooms? She did not know. Outside the large windows, a... lawn. Artificial, but not terribly unconvincing. Trees, beyond, and low mountains in the distance that looked... almost... like...

She looked at Kestrel, confusion clear across her face, and tried to speak, but stumbled over words, and then stumbled over herself, and almost fell, before being caught by Emily, and then a moment later, Lena, who was a little less sure about how safe she was to touch. "Woah, woah, Widowmaker, woah, it's, um... what's wrong?"

The blue woman looked around, disoriented, dissociated, and the two Oxtons helped her to a couch. "Are you... my..." she said, to Emily, in a bit of a daze, "no, that can't be... could you... how much... is real? Are those curtains? Are they real? Please, close them?"

Lena dashed over to the curtains and triggered them to close. Why are there curtains? thought the assassin. This is... She blinked, slowly. Ah. A little better. She stood, suddenly, and walked up to feel them - real? Real.

She began walking around the living room, touching objects, rifle forgotten on the couch. Everything she saw that she could reach, she touched, and having touched it, moved on.

"All of this is real, luv," said Tracer.

"Most of it's vintage," added Kestrel. "The upholstery is new, and some pieces are re-creations. We had the money, so we wanted to preserve the..."

"...why would ... someone ... make this? Was... is this a conditioning facility?" She looked at the ginger, head tilted. "Are you my... handler? Are you?"

"Oh my god," said Emily, horror in her voice. "Is something about this part of how they work on you?" Lena looked at Emily, similarly shocked. "No! No, I swear!" the teleporter stressed. "It wasn't anything like that! It was just a bomb shelter built by some boffin with too much dosh. If bombs fell, they wanted t' ride it out in style."

"Widowmaker," interjected Emily, not yet moving, but tensed. "I think this is important. I am not your handler. You are your own handler. You have no handler other than yourself. Do you understand?" The sniper stopped briefly, and nodded, eyes just a little bit more focused.

Emily walked up to the blue woman, carefully, who walked slowly around the main rooms, touching objects, making sure they felt the same as they looked. "Did that help? Do we need to leave? Do you need to be somewhere else? I swear to you, we did not know you'd have this reaction. This is just a ... strange old house. That's all it is. This is not a reconditioning environment of any kind," she repeated. "It's just a very well hidden safehouse." She looked over to Lena. "Love, turn off all the holograms, she was fine 'till then."

The upper windows, which had still shown the holographic sky, now showed mural instead, smooth light sheets with occasional chiaroscuro clouds. Widowmaker shook her head, and held her hands up to her eyes for a moment, covering them - then, she looked back to the room, and to Emily, beside her. "Thank you."

"Right then," said Emily, taking a deep breath and turning towards Lena. "We're relocating! Yukon? It's small, but it'll do for a day. Or, we'll need to refuel, but New Zealand should be..."

"No," said Widowmaker, grabbing Emily's hands. "No. Thank you. This will do nicely." She looked around the rooms, focus completely returned. "I... like this space. The upper level, there are sleeping facilities?"

"Yeh - and baths. Workroom, armoury, weights room below. But - you sure?" asked the teleporter. "You... kind of lost the plot there for a bit..."

"I'm still worried about this," interjected Emily, still feeling the other woman's cool blue hands in her own. "Do you want to talk about what you said? Are you... you?"

"No. Yes. Yes." Widowmaker looked back and forth between the two women. "You did not attempt to create any directives, when I entered maintenance mode - except to hand me to myself." She looked at Kestrel, before her. "I am... I am..." she blinked, trying to parse the feeling. "I am... grateful."

"We didn't know that was possible."

"That I could be grateful?"

Tracer snickered, and Emily said, "No, that you could be ... put in that state."

"It should not have been possible. There is... something, I think, in my system, still. Presumably from your doctor. But you did not try to take advantage of it. Thank you."

"She just told us about sedatives, that's all," insisted Emily. "We asked."

Widowmaker smirked. "It is possible she did not lie. Some sedatives have... relevant secondary properties."

Lena frowned. "Y'think she left somthin' out? Some details? Intentionally?"

The blue woman nodded, considering. "Possibly. I have felt..." She looked to Emily again. "...easily trusting - of you both, but you in particular."

Emily's face twisted into a snarl. "Dammit, Angela... you did lie to me." She felt like hitting something, but... those hands. She looked back to Lena again. "We really should move on. Or - at very least, let's disable the hologram projectors. We can do that."

"No," said the assassin. "Turn them back on."

"What?" chorused the two Overwatch exiles, looking back towards the assassin.

"Turn them back on. If you can do this accidentally, Talon could do it on purpose. Open the curtains and reactivate the holograms."

Lena and Emily looked at each other, nervously. Well, Emily thought, the whole idea was she's a person, and people can make their own decisions... She shrugged an I-guess-so at Lena, who nodded, and the curtains opened and the holograms phased back to life, taking the artificial landscape from laughable to convincing.

Widowmaker's gaze remained focused this time, as she took in the projected vista. "It is... almost like the view from the Chateau's upper levels. No lake, more evergreens, taller mountains in the distance. But, in the foreground, not unlike... that."

"The chateau?"

"A family property of Amélie's, in France. Also, my home."

"You have a house?"

"A chateau," she stressed. "It's where I live. Talon knows of it, or I would've taken us there." The blue assassin smirked. "Did you think I lived in a barracks? Or that they... put me away, somewhere? Boxed me up, between missions?"

"Well," Lena coughed, a little embarrassed, "...kinda, yeh..." and the assassin... chuckled.

"That similarity good or bad, luv?" asked the teleporter. "Did they use that against... her?"

"I do not know," she said, and shook her head again. "This is foolish... no, it is not foolish. It is important." She turned to Emily, again. "For whatever reason, my conditioning has responded to you as my handler. I am trusting of you, but it has been years since any handler could truly control me. I demonstrated that by killing my first - but I have no urge to kill you. Do you understand?"

"No," said Emily. "I do not. I - I don't want this. Can you ... undo it? Somehow?"

The blue assassin shook her head. "No. Not immediately. But that you do not want it makes me feel... secure." She thought about diving over to the couch, grabbing her rifle, and aiming it at Kestrel's forehead, just as a demonstration. She also flashed on embracing the woman, picking her up, running her fingers through her hair... and had no idea why. I... could I do... that? she asked herself, not knowing which she meant, before deciding, yes, she could - and that therefore, there was no need, quite yet, to do either. Instead, she turned her golden-eyed gaze to Kestrel, eyes to eyes, and smiled, and for once, there was a breath - no more, but a breath - of truth in it.

"I will do everything in my power not to use this," Kestrel said, returning the blue woman's smile with solemnity. "If I do, on accident - tell me. Teach me how not to use this."

"I will," whispered the assassin, lifting the hands she still held to her lips, kissing them lightly, sealing a vow. "I promise."